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“Now that’s ugly…”

There’s no doubt that the scrap yard along the motorway adjacent to the Oval is a work in progress. It’s hard to know whose work in progress it belongs too though. Is it the City Council’s District Plan for allowing this activity in the first instance? Perhaps it belongs to Transit for its lack of any vegetation on the adjacent area which fails to create any coherent screening from both visual and noise effects? Or is it the landowners at Everitt’s for undertaking such an activity in this particular area? From a distance it would seem all are equally complicit.

This is the first view that people have when arriving or exiting our city. What about it Dunedin? Can we do better than this? Surely we value our city’s first impression to our visitors and our community more than this?

This area is going to altered with the upgrades and widening of the motorway soon. This appears to the Society to be an opportunity for the agencies involved to make some positive changes for the benefit of our landscape aesthetic and our image. The Society would welcome any interaction between those agencies that manage this area to resolve and remediate a real piece of “ugly Dunedin”. It’s not about shutting down businesses or economic activities, it’s about how the city manages the visual, landscape and commercial effects of activities so that everyone wins. Let’s get ugly out of our city, and see whether we could make this area work for the benefit of our community.

2 thoughts on ““Now that’s ugly…””

Yes it is unsightly but it is a local business doing a very good job of recycling waste metals. Would suggest that hedgerow would reduce the impact or could they expand into the rear area of Carisbrook where the adjacent road ends and where the scrap would not be so visible.

The Society totally agree that recycling is an essential activity in a resource strapped economy and naturally support the recycling business in its activities. However, the Society also believe that there should be effective mitigation of the visual effects of those activities to ensure we enhance and protect our environment and cityscape. Like the article says, its not about placing prohibitions on businesses, but working with businesses to ensure we have a city that is visually attractive. It’s also about making agencies who are responsible for managing these types of areas accountable to the community in regards to visual and environmental effects. You’re on the right track about the use of vegetation let’s hope that the city can undertake some affirmative action that improves the present situation in this area.